Arachnophobia
by Blackbetsirose
Summary: Donna does not like spiders.


This is a oneshot from the Belle Series, a series of fics I will not be posting here, but you can find them on Archive of Our Own, and LiveJournal. See my profile information for my names over on those sites. I don't own Ten, Donna, Doctor Who, Torchwood, Jack, Gwen, or Ianto. The BBC does.

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Donna gets migraines. She has ever since the metacrisis happened. She had hoped that the regeneration thing she and the Doctor had done at the ill fated wedding of hers and Shaun Temple's would have fixed that. It hasn't. They have lessened in frequency though if not in strength. She gets an aura now, with the vision going gray in her left eye, followed by circles of iridescent triangles going round the gray patches. It's annoying, yes and damned nauseating, but it gives her a forty five minute warning that Michael Flatley and his Lord of the Dance company will be riverdancing in and on her skull. She can prepare with a dark room and a lovely dissolvable tablet called Maxalt. True, she _could_ make use of futuristic medicines on the TARDIS, and she has in times where they were in a hurry, but sometimes (now especially since she and the Doctor have decided to try this whole being a couple thing) a dark room, and the Doctor's fingers massaging her temples is quite lovely.

That is not happening now however. Now they are in the Torchwood hub, visiting Jack, Gwen, and Ianto. The TARDIS is up on the Plass refueling, the Doctor is off with Ianto in the archives looking at the whatchamacallits that have fallen through the rift, Jack is entertaining Belle with a computer and music from all over the universe, and Donna is sitting on the couch with a cup of tea, attempting to have a conversation with Gwen. Which is not going well. Donna has discovered she and Gwen have nothing in common, and she thinks she might be getting a headache from hearing every last detail about Rhys. A light in the corner of her eye draws her attention as it gives a brief twinkle.

She blinks, focusing on a clock across the hub and when half of it seems to disappear, she knows what's happening. Groaning a little, she draws the attention of Jack, who comes right over. She asks him if she can lie down somewhere dark as a migraine is making itself known. He takes her to his office, and then to his room below it, where he has a camp bed. She takes out the Maxalt packet she carries everywhere (bigger on the inside pockets are lovely), takes the pill and lays down, assuring Jack she's fine, it's just a migraine and she'll be as good as new in about two hours or so. He nods, tells her he'll be right upstairs if she needs anything, and the Doctor is…he stops and shrugs, saying the Doctor is right there apparently.

The Doctor climbs down the ladder, says Gwen told him something was wrong, and he came to check. She assures him it's only a migraine and he can go back to ogling the rift stuff. He offers to rub her temples, but she passes saying they came to see their friends, so one of them besides Belle should be out there. He frowns, but agrees, but not without pressing a kiss to her lips. She kisses back, a couple more lingering kisses, then she shoos him up the ladder. A few minutes later, she drops off into sleep.

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When she awakens, she looks at the small clock Jack has on the stand next to the bed. She's been asleep for two and a half hours. She yawns, stretches, and is relieved to feel that the migraine is now a small ache she can successfully ignore. Then something on the ceiling catches her eye. It's not huge, but it's not small either. And it's just there. In the middle of the ceiling. Watching her.

Donna dislikes spiders. Not just because a former fiancé tried to feed her to a giant spider (arachnid like being technically, but a spider all the same), but because spiders are just creepy. Too many legs, too many eyes, and some of them have these bulbous bodies that belong in Steven King novels, not in nature. They can move so quickly and other times they just hunker down in the corners between the wall and ceiling and stare at you. She knows they're not actually staring at her precisely, but they give that feeling.

The thing above her on the ceiling now, is definitely a spider. It's got the eight legs, and the same look as Earth spiders, but still. This is Torchwood. It's on a rift. Who knows what kinds of insects and arachnids come through that rift. Jack, Ianto, and Gwen can't catch _everything_ can they? She sucks in a breath and gets off the bed, going to the chair nearby. She thinks this is probably a stupid idea, but she pushes the chair nearer to the bed, and stands on it. Peering closer, she decides that yes this certainly is a spider.

The spider chooses that moment to run forwards towards her. She shrieks and tries to jump off the chair only to catch her foot on the back of it, and she tumbles to the bed, and then the floor. Footsteps are heard, and soon Jack's little room has three men stumbling into it from the ladder. The Doctor goes to her side immediately asking her what's wrong, and what she's looking at, because she's got her eyes on the ceiling. No way is she taking her eyes off that eight legged little freak. She points, and the Doctor, Ianto, and Jack see the spider has stopped moving, and is standing still once more.

Jack goes for a fly swatter he's got in the bathroom, but the Doctor waves him off, and pulls a jar out of his pocket (a jar? An empty jar? Really?) and catches the spider with it. He puts a lid on the jar and holds it up to his face. "Oh, you are gorgeous, you are," he coos to it, making Jack snort, Ianto roll his eyes, and Donna glare.

"It tried to attack me," she growls.

"Attack you?" the Doctor says, with his eyebrows raised. "He was probably more scared of you than you were of him," he turned back to the jar, where the spider sits almost sedately. "Weren't you, you lovely little thing? Did the mean lady scare you?" he turns the jar in his hands, then jumps as the spider makes a sudden move, the jar falling to the floor and shattering, the spider hightailing it across the floor for the bed. The Doctor crouches on the floor next to the bed, still cooing to it. Donna gets back on the bed, and sits in the middle of it, wanting no part of her body on the floor with a potentially homicidal arachnid running loose.

The Doctor is halfway under the bed, when he lets out a squawk, bangs his head on the bed frame, and backs up quickly. He leaps onto the bed, and when the spider runs out from the other side, he aims his sonic and fries the beast. He proceeds to glare at the black spot that moments before had been a spider.

"Lovely little thing?" Donna asks him after a few moments.

"It ran at me," the Doctor mutters, rubbing his head where he banged it. "I saved it's life and it repaid me by trying to bite my nose."

This is met with general laughter, that even the Doctor joins in on, though it does irk him just a little. But then he eyes the black spot again. Perhaps Donna's aversion to spiders isn't all that unreasonable…


End file.
